A Postcard from Canton

Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Advice of Jonathan Keny Jr. to his children was published soon after the Ensign’s death in 1756.

The imagery that stirs the loudest in the Ken Burns
documentary, The Civil War is that of the letter from Sullivan Ballou to his
wife Sarah. In his now-famous letter to his wife, Ballou endeavored to express
the emotions he was feeling: worry, fear, guilt, sadness and, most importantly,
the pull between his love for her and his sense of duty to the country. And
that letter, now famous, is simply one in thousands upon thousands of letters
home from our men and women in the military that express love, fear and the
emotions tied to war.

Letters home have always served as a reminder of the costs
associated with great sacrifice. In fact, many of these letters became wartime
propaganda, held up as an example of the glory of service to one’s country. In
the effort to promote the Second World War, thousands of posters were created
to “sell messages.” Federal agencies printed a downpour of brightly colored
posters. Labor unions and factory owners printed up their own versions aimed at
turning defense workers into “production soldiers.” At the end of the day it is
emotion that moves the spirit to action.And, while we may think propaganda is a modern invention, it is in fact an
ancient art. If the letter home from Sullivan Ballou stands out, it is because
the emotions are real, deep, and intensely personal.

More than 100 years earlier the French and Indian War was
the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' War. The war, fought
between the colonies of British America and New France, with both sides
supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and France,
as well as Native allies. As the war began, the French North American colonies
had a population of roughly 60,000 compared to 2 million in the English North
American colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on the Indians.
Long in conflict, the two nations declared war on each other in 1756,
escalating the war from a regional affair into an international conflict. This
was the war that saw the expulsions of the Acadians from the Annapolis Basin in
Nova Scotia and redrew the boundaries of two nations.

To bolster troops brought from England, the Crown turned to
the colonists as support for the war efforts. As early as 1744, Governor
William Shirley devised a plan to take Louisburg. Several local militiamen were
pressed into service for the King. Throughout the war, many Stoughton men took
part in hostilities and we have many examples of how the war changed the lives
right here in our own community. Guiding by example, the Reverend Samuel
Dunbar, was a staunch supporter of the Crown. Dunbar was of the highest moral
character and most esteemed by the entire community, so when the King of
England placed the call of duty in 1755, Dunbar, as chaplain, accompanied
Richard Gridley and Paul Revere (then 21) to fight against the French at Crown
Point.

Crown Point was a critical and strategic battleground for
the war between the two nations. During the 17th Century, both France and Great
Britain laid claim to the Champlain Valley: the French by virtue of the voyages
of Verrazano, Cartier, and Champlain; the British based on those of the Cabots
in 1497 and 1498. It would be Crown
Point that would be the final soil on which thirteen men from Stoughton would
fall in service to the Crown.

William Johnson was placed in command of a force of 3,500
Provincial troops from New England, New York, and New Jersey, for the
expedition against Fort St. Frédéric. While the Provincial troops prevailed,
they did not press their advantage.

In response, the French began construction in October 1755
of Carillon (later named Fort Ticonderoga) to serve as a buffer between the
British position at Lake George and Fort St. Frédéric. During this period of
the conflict, more than thirty young men from what was then Stoughton – but
largely now Canton – fought in the war.

Col. Samuel Miller, whose military district embraced the
town of Stoughton, says that in 1755 the town had three hundred and twenty
enlisted soldiers; that the stock of ammunition consisted only of four
half-barrels of powder, and lead and flints accordingly, which was but half of
what the town should possess. The selectmen accordingly ordered a tax of £40 to
be assessed to make good the deficiency.

The story of some of the Stoughton men who enlisted in his
Majesty's service in the expedition to Crown Point is wrought with sickness,
death and difficult journeys home.Elijah Esty, Nathaniel Clark, Thomas Billings, John Wadsworth, William
Patten, James Bailey, Michael Woodcock, and James, son of Joseph Everett, were
all taken sick in camp at Lake George. Some of them remained for weeks in the
hospital at Albany, but for each of them a horse was purchased by their friends,
and some one from Stoughton went out and brought them home. Joseph Tucker, a
minor, was brought home by his brother Uriah. John Redman took a wagon to go
from Lake George to Albany; and for some reason the driver put him out of the
vehicle in the wilderness, where, he affirms, he must have perished had not
Sargent Ralph Houghton, of Milton, happened to pass that way, who took pity on
him, hired another wagon to carry him to Albany, and also lent him money to buy
such things as were necessary. Daniel Talbot and his seventeen-year-old son
Amaziah both engaged in the Crown Point expedition. The son was taken sick at
Half Moon, and the father hired a horse to bring them home; the son died
en-route, and the father returned home alone.

Yet, it is the letter that we now have in our ancient
Stoughton document tome that has stood the test of time. Few know of its
existence and merely a handful of historians have spent any time with this
letter. It was written in that part of Stoughton that is now Canton. So strong
were the words, that it was published as a broadside, likely by the English
colonial government as a way to build support for the campaign against the
French. The letter was written by Jonathan Keny just before the young man left
for Albany, New York for Crown Point. Historical accounts of the young ensign
paint a picture of a devoted family man and member of the Church of England who
grew up in the early 1700’s in what is now Ponkapoag. Around 1750, Keny (also
spelled as Kenney) married Sarah Redman, the daughter of Robert Redman, one of
the earliest settlers in this area.

In the dark of an early spring night, Keny paced the floors
of his small house near Potash Meadows and Aunt Katy’s Brook. Holding his two
small children - his boy, Jonathan just barely two years old, and his daughter,
Cloe, age four. Keny’s wife had died two years earlier, perhaps after the birthing
of their son. And so, Keny knew that departing for war meant that he might
never look upon their sweet faces again.

The letter, written on April 16, 1756 under seal, is
religious, poignant, and heart wrenching when you consider that Keny would die
within months of the writing. “Dear children, Since God by his all-wise
providence, about sixteen months ago, remove your kind and tender mother from
you by death, and as I am called by Providence to go into service of my King
and country, and not knowing whether ever I shall return to you again, I charge
and beseech you to mind the One Thing needful, to remember your Creator in the
days of your youth, to love one another, to mind religion while you are young,
to be constant in secret prayer, for God loves to hear young children come to
him, and though you have no father or mother he will be better to you than the
most affectionate parents can possibly be… I charge you to beware of bad
company… to be obedient, and often read your books…when you come to a sick bed,
and a dying hour, to look back on a life well spent.”

The letter is quite long, and ends with the premonition of Keny’s
death “My dear children, I hope better things of you, and things that accompany
salvation, and I charge and advise you once more to observe this council and
advice; and though you may never see me again in this world, I entreat you to
prepare to meet me in heaven where I hope to rest after this frail life is
ended.”Keny died in a hospital at
Albany within nine months of writing the letter. Delivered to his small
children, the letter contained a gold ring that he had placed on his wife’s
finger six years earlier.

The children were placed in the care of their grandparents,
Robert and Mary Redman, who raised them as their own.In 1757, Robert Redman executed a will in
which he provided for his grandchildren, leaving 6 pounds 13 shillings and 4
pence to Jonathan and 4 pounds and a good cow to Cloe when she arrived at the
age of twenty-one.The letter was
published soon after his death and one of only two known copies survive in the
collection of the Canton Historical Society.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Canton’s Infantryman at the turn of the 20thcentury with a group of Canton High School girls.

As is so often the case, soldiers that return home from war
are often broken. We see the veterans who have sacrificed for our great nation,
but sometimes what we fail to see are the scars hidden deep inside. And, if
there could be a metaphor for all this, it is the soldier that is about to
return home to Canton next week.

This soldier, Infantryman,
has stood guard for over one hundred years. You may have seen him during his
lonely vigil, looking down over Washington Street – or standing guard at the
end of a dusty hallway. Yet, his is a history that will come full circle in
just a matter of days. This is the story of the Civil War Monument and one man
who has a pretty ambitious bucket list.

On the second floor of the William’s Estate is the office of
the Veteran’s Agent, Tony Andreotti. The office is littered with flags, files,
and plaques. Sitting behind his desk, one day last year, Melissa Araujo walked
into his office. Melissa is the daughter of a Canton man that had been killed
in action in Vietnam. Andreotti had been recognizing various fallen heroes at
their graveside for the past several years, and a few years ago attention was
turned to Rudolph Araujo who had died almost forty-four years ago.

At the simple ceremony, at St. Mary’s Cemetery on Washington
Street, the family gathered to pay tribute to a husband, father and citizen of
Canton. As Andreotti looked down at the headstone he shook his head, “this was
a small, government issued stone that seemed so insignificant- certainly given
the sacrifice that Rudolph had made to his country.” And, as far as sacrifices
go, Araujo gave the ultimate one – his life. In a far away place, near Binh
Duong, South Vietnam, an explosive device killed the 29 year-old army mechanic
just four days before Christmas. In an instant, a wife and a daughter’s
holidays were forever changed. In that winter of 1969, the Town of Canton
mourned the loss of one of its own.

And, reflecting upon that modest stone, it was apparent to
Andreotti that something had to change. “The original stone was so
insignificant that you could not find it. I think perhaps the family might not
have had the means for a larger stone. So, we are correcting this now.” And, by
correcting it, Andreotti means that he will make the insignificant, now significant.
It has always been the mission of this Veteran’s Agent to make us see what has
been lost to time. This past Sunday on a crisp autumn morning, family and
friends and townspeople gathered at the grave of Rudolph Ernest Araujo. The air
hung heavy, and leaves crunched underfoot. In this sacred place,Andreotti helped us remember the sacrifice of
this amazing hero. What was there was trivial, what is now there today is
proper.

What has been done makes us stand up, take notice, and
remember. And still, another soldier is about to return and as a result of
significant funding by the people of Canton, we will give our tribute to the
fallen Civil War soldiers from Canton. By now, everyone knows the story of the
statue that had stood at Memorial Hall. One night, hoodlums from a neighboring
town – in response to local rivalries – hitched a rope around the statue and
tied the other end to the bumper of a car and in an instant destroyed a
monument to the War of the Rebellion.

Andreotti was reminded that Community Preservation money
could help restore the statue, the repair of which had been on his “bucket
list” for quite some time. “I conceived of the project in 2000 – a year into my
new job as agent. I asked Buddy Fallon to get a quote for restoration, and as
budgets have always been tight it was impossible to undertake.” Explains
Andreotti, “Jeremy Comeau gave me the hint … we were at Starbucks one day and
he tipped me off.And I went after the
money and fortunately the town was receptive.”

Canton’s Civil War Monument has a name – known simply as Infantryman, the statue is painted,
cast-zinc, and manufactured by the J.W. Fiske Company in the early 1890’s.
Weighing in at 400 pounds and measuring almost seven feet high, this statue has
several “brothers” throughout the country.This same statue can be found in Iola, Kansas at the town cemetery, in
North Kingstown, Rhode Island, and more importantly one on Martha’s Vineyard at
Oak Bluffs.

It is important to note that these statues were made of soft
metal called zinc. The costs of production of zinc as opposed to bronze are
lower due to its low melting temperature and yet when cast it mimics bronze. At
the time, zinc was referred to as “white bronze” and was marketed as
alternative to actual bronze. In the late 1800’s it was very common for garden
sculptures and memorials to be cast in zinc, examples of such can be found in
the old part of Canton Corner Cemetery. For a town like Canton, and even though
donated by the wealthy philanthropist Elijah Morse, the choice of zinc over
more expensive sculptures meant the ability to order a statue from a catalog
for quick delivery.

When Infantryman
arrived in 1890, he was placed inside Memorial Hall and used as a drinking
fountain. Water would pour forth from the lions’ heads in the pedestal into
small cast iron bowls.Quite a
controversy erupted when a town resident reportedly walked off with the ladles,
causing a brouhaha, “scores of people have gone to the fountain for a cool
refreshing drink, only to find the dippers gone. The officers should keep a
strict watch and if possible, catch the rascal,” the local paper reported.

Then, in 1894, the town decided to relocate the memorial
statue and drinking fountain to the front lawn of Memorial Hall where he stood
until attacked by vandals. A wonderful conservation effort by Canton resident,
Ernie Ciccotelli pieced Infantryman
back together, but he could not be moved outside. Relegated to a back hallway,
Andreotti moved restoration off of his bucket list and onto active duty.

What has happened next is nothing short of a miracle in
preservation. Part art and part science, the statue has been in Maryland for
the past forty days in the care of very talented conservationists. As the sculpture was unwrapped, the conditions
were noted and paint removed. Plenty of items had been lost including the end
of the bayonet, the thumb, the interior of the cape, a section of gun strap,
and sections of the plinth and strap on the cap brim.

A rare glimpse inside Infantryman, where a new stainless steel skeleton takes shape.

Overseeing the project is Mark Rabinowitz, the Executive
Vice President of Conservation Solutions, Inc. the firm that is handling this
project. “The best goal for public art is to serve the public need it was
intended for.” Notes Rabinowitz, observing that the very essence of this statue
is more than a memorial; it is “art.” Of the use of zinc, Rabinowitz puts
forward the idea that “it is an interesting form of sculpture whereby the
ideals which public art embody – nobility and memorial – were available to
localities for a lower cost, leading to the best democratization of the values
of public art.”

David Espinosa and Bob Donahue solder the cape,
which conceals the interior armature.

And, when you think of Infantryman
as art, he takes on additional meaning.A new stainless steel armature has been fabricated and has
become the skeleton inside the figure. As for the missing items, it is here
that the “brothers” have been called into action. In the Hurricane of 1938 Infantryman of the Oak Bluffs Soldiers
and Sailors Memorial was toppled and severely damaged. In 2002 Conservation
Solutions’ conservators fully restored the work to its original condition. So
good was the work that the project received an award for excellence from
Smithsonian Institute. Today, the same molds that were used for Oak Bluffs (and
originally cast from the North Kingston, RI Infantryman)
have come full circle to become castings for the scabbard and bayonet missing
from our monument. In the case of Oak Bluffs, an actual 1859 Springfield
bayonet was used to create a wood model and ultimately the zinc cast
replacement. The same model was used again with permission of Oak Bluffs to
bring our soldier back to condition.

Over several emails, Tony Andreotti has received updates for
the past several weeks. The head, oddly detached, lies on a table and gets
close attention and repair. The loose ammo pack becomes soldered to the body.
Small losses have been filled with synthetic materials. And within the past few
days Infantryman has been reassembled
and coated with a system of acid etching primers and acrylics designed to mimic
the bronze patina. Bronze powder filled paint has been followed by a coat of
darker brown paint and rubbed back to age the statue. And finally, a coat of
wax seals the system.

Within days, Infantryman
will return to Canton, still a broken soldier – with wounds well covered, yet
well cared for by a loving community and a caring Veteran’s Agent. This is why
Andreotti ordered a new gravestone for a fallen Vietnam War veteran, and why he
initiated the restoration of the Civil War Memorial – to make us remember the
sacrifice of our soldiers. When asked if he fears that vandals may attack
again, Andreotti merely shrugs and says, “I do not think so,” but in true
military fashion he adds, “and if they do, we will put it back up again.”

Thursday, October 16, 2014

A large Normanskill-type stone spear or knife point
from the Late Archaic period in the collection of the Canton Historical
Society.

As Joe Bagley speaks, his passion for archeology flows.
Standing in front of an overflowing room, Bagley looks the part of an
archeologist, rugged boots, tough pants, and a boyish smile. The audience hangs
on his every word. This is the Friends of the Blue Hills’ 35th
Anniversary Meeting, and the City of Boston Archeologist reveals the amazing
history that is beneath our feet. In a word, his talk is about stewardship.

The Blue Hills Reservation is such an amazing place. As
someone who has hiked hundreds of miles within its borders, I can never fail to
marvel at this historical place in our own backyards. And, this is the perfect
time of year to get out and walk on the same trails that man walked on more
than 8000 years ago.

The Blue Hills were so named by early European explorers
who, while sailing along the coastline, noticed the bluish hue on the slopes
when viewed from a distance. The blue comes from the rocks that formed the
geology of the hills 600 million years ago. It may be hard to believe but this
site was formed as a result of a large volcano that has been worn down over
these millions of years to be the site we know today.And the blue hue of the rock tells a story
that extends back almost ten thousand years ago when Native Americans created a
bustling community on this land.

City of Boston, Archeologist, Joseph Bagley
conducting field research.

In his minds eye Bagley, like many of the archeologists who
have come before him, can see the camps, the workshops, the quarry sites and
the hunting grounds of a great people who were the first stewards of the land
along the Neponset Valley. “Many of the trails we walk today are the exact same
trails that have been used for thousands of years,” explains Bagley.

Today the trails are used for recreation, but thousands of
years ago these were the paths used to commute between quarries to workshops
and then onto hunting grounds. The rocks that crunch underfoot tell the story
of not only geology of the Blue Hills but also the archeology. It is in the
rocks that we start to see why this was the center of industry for early man.

Bagley tells of one “aha” moment. “There was a site that I
had read about just south of Granite Links Golf Course, and while still a
student with some time on my hands I took an afternoon treat and hiked to look
for this area. Based on what I had read, I was not prepared for the scale, I
mean you are looking for something and then you discover it is so large you are
actually standing in it.”Bagley says
that the personal discovery “was mind blowing.” What he stumbled upon on the
western side of the Blue Hill Reservation was the debris of a major prehistoric
quarry.

Bagley was off the trail and climbing up the hill, expecting
to see rocky outcrops – but instead there were terraces and the back was stone.
“I was looking for the rock outcrop, and then I realized there were flakes
everywhere. The rock was being dug from the un-weathered rock, which would make
for stronger tools. The natives were taking the cobble out of the ground to
create the rough shapes leaving behind mounds in the millions of waste
products.” At the top of the hill is an old weathered cellar hole of a
farmhouse, and the foundation was made up of the byproducts of stone tool
making. Essentially the colonial farmer was unknowingly recycling - using waste
from thousands of years ago.

What Bagley and other archeologists know is that the Blue
Hills Reservation is a treasure worth studying and protecting to understand the
tools used by earliest man. While the geology of the Blue Hills was studied as
early as 1900, it took almost four decades later for archeologists to delve
into the area. In the late 1930’s Harvard’s Peabody Museum began to turn it's
attention toward the Blue Hills. Radiocarbon dating was just getting into the
science and the archeology team knew that many of the lithic – or stone tool –
artifacts were made from stone only found in the Blue Hill range. The Lithic
stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, occurring
during the Late Pleistocene period, to a time before 8,000 B.C. The process of flint
knapping yields lots of debris. The term knapped is synonymous with
"chipped" or "struck.” Throughout the Blue Hills you can find
evidence of flaking, pecking, pounding, grinding, drilling, and incising rock
in such a way that this area becomes a significant historical resource.

Allan Lowry

Canton is a hotbed of early archeological artifacts, and in
the collection of the local historical society there are artifacts that include
such things such as mortars also known as metates, pestles, grinding slabs, hammerstones,
spear points and scrapers. For many people who claim to hunt for arrowheads,
they are more likely to find spear points and knives as the bow and arrow was
only developed about 1000 years ago. The tools that have been found are much
older.

And we have had local archeologists who have revealed our
unique past. Allan Lowry, a much beloved Canton resident found much of what has
been discovered beneath some of the most important sites in our town. Allan
passed away a number of years ago, but Allan’s wife Elaine recalls how he
started. “As a young couple we were raking leaves in the yard and I found a
stone that looked like a hammer,” explains Lowry, “ I guess from that point on
he was hooked. Each Sunday I would drop him off at a dig site and then I would
go to church, he wasn't a church goer.” For Allan Lowry his religion was found
deep in the ground and extended back over thousands of years.

This unchanged view across Ponkapoag Pond is quite
close to a Native site used for perhaps 5000 years an autumn hunting camp.

Lowry was responsible, in part, for excavating the Green
Hill Site, now a protected location and part of the National Register of
Historic Places. Highway construction once threatened this place, but today it is
now part of the Blue Hills Reservation. The middle and late archaic site is
located on the Milton Canton line and encompasses part of the Metropolitan
District Commission’s purchase of 78.44 acres of Augustus Hemenway’s estate in
1940.

In 1883 Augustus Hemenway purchased several acres of the
site from a family of horse fanciers whose stables then graced the neighborhood.
By about 1900 Hemenway had purchased the remainder of the site and upon it
situated this "South Farm.” A site report from 1980 writes, “The gentle
slopes around the site’s kame hill, which had been used for occasional tillage
prior to 1883, reverted back to grazing land. The Hemenway cow pasture was
situated just east of the hill. On the site, partridge and quail were hunted. On the hill itself, virtually treeless until
about 40 years ago, strawberries could be picked in season amid scraggly undergrowth,
which discouraged all but the most intrepid. Quite possibly the hill has been little
disturbed by human activity since prehistoric times. In any case the present
mixed pine hardwood cover resembles the hill’s prehistoric appearance.”In the spring of 1966 more than 200 stone
tools were found prior to local highway construction. The site was excavated in
two periods, 1966-1972 and then again in 1972-1976.The conclusion made through the amateur
archeology was that this was a site likely used as an autumn campsite, offering
easy access to the felsite quarries of the Blue Hills, and provided a
manufacturing site for tools.

Bagley knows the importance of the Blue Hills Reservation
and his voice wavers with emotion as describes the place as “a mecca of stone
production.” Wampatuck Hill, just north of the reservoir, in particular is 353
feet of Rhyolite and largely a source for the raw materials of tool making. Yet
another site near Ponkapoag Pond near the golf course yielded evidence of
almost 5000 years of use by people of the early and middle late archaic
periods. Taken in it’s totality, the Blue Hills Reservation in one fashion or
another represents a human timespan starting at the Paleo-Indian Period,
through the Archaic, Early and Middle Woodland Periods, and of course the
Contact and Colonial Periods. We are talking 16,000 years of man’s use of the
natural resources along the Neponset River.

Can we still learn from the Blue Hills? The answer according
to Bagley is a definitive “yes.”During
the Middle Woodland Period (1000 - 3000 years ago) – trade routes exploded and
goods moved from and between places as far away as Pennsylvania and Coxsackie,
New York. We know this, because we have found tools made of stone that only
came from these places. And then at 1000 years ago all trade stopped. The tools
that are found from this period only come from Lynn or Saugus or the Blue
Hills. For Bagley, there will always be questions, and fortunately we have the
Blue Hill Reservation protecting the answers. As Bagley puts it, “this place is
right, this place is good, our human instincts relate to these sites.” For more
than 35 years the Friends of the Blue Hills have protected the paths and trails
that have been travelled by ancient man. Next time you hike, take a look down
and travel back to an ancient time and place.